This video about the Thai cave rescue combines two style examples that could work well.
Here is an example where they use 2 or more main types of animation style for easy and compelling and watching and combine it with easy-listening narration:
1- A Story-like narrative style combined with graphic novel visuals to captivate attention on the story elements
For the history elements, they use this style to flesh out the main account more like a traditional narrative, with story-like narration. This could correspond well to describing scientific historical contexts, describe the lives of the scientists and the world they live in, and depict the stories of discovery. Making it as storylike as possible would be ideal as people of all ages seem to love listening to stories.
2) Infographic-style Animation: to guide the user on the technical aspects via motion.
This link describes the basics and purpose of infographics, the various styles and many popular types of infographic information, using some top real-world examples.
They then use a different, more animated or even infographic style for explaining the technical elements (such as showing how the caves were scanned for other entrances using various technologies and the flow of water entering and exiting the cave). This would correspond well to integrating science history along with the science itself, and the context switching between styles can be helpful in retaining attention, particularly of a younger audience.
For me personally this combination is effective for learning and makes me want to consume everything else on their channel which resembles that style and storylike feel.
I associate the graphic novel style with something exciting and heroic such as superhero comics, and it automatically makes me want to keep watching, and the fact that the infographic portions are constrained only to the technical elements helps me cement these in my mind as the times where I need to pay special attention to the "how" elements. Given this style can often be more overwhelming I find it easier to handle in smaller bites as it requires a different type of mental processing and visualisation to the main story elements. This would suit a science show well for showing the actual visualisation of the actual movements of particles or the bonding of molecules, state changes etc.
Having the only motion be reserved strictly for guiding explanatory purposes seems a powerful tactic to particularly help keep the focus on learning, hence the use of still images seems particularly effective in this combination of story and explanation, although perhaps more social study research should be done to confirm whether this is the case and the level of retention through this type of media compared to other multimedia and animation styles.
Darko Savic Jul 14, 2021